Compounds with a similar structural formula and suitable processes for their preparation are described in the Offenlegungsschrift DE 40 34 785.
Inflammatory bowel disorders frequently lead to colonic pain, digestive disorders and in the worst case to intestinal obstruction. The latter is associated with colic-like pain as a result of a heavy contractile stimulus, stool and wind retention, vomiting and, with increasing duration of the condition, dehydration, rebound tenderness of the abdomen and finally shock.
Functional bowel disorders are attributed to all sorts of causes; inter alia to an abnormality in the contractility of the smooth intestinal muscles and the gastrointestinal motor activity. An excessive contractile activity and a modified coordination of the motor activity can cause pain by the activation of the mechanico-receptor and by transport abnormalities which lead to distension of the intestine. These causes were until now also assumed to explain chest pains which are not due to the heart, and also to explain the pain of irritable bowel syndrome or dyspepsia which is not associated with an ulcer. Meanwhile, this relationship has been further supported by 24-hour recordings of the motor oesophageal and gastroduodenal function of patients who were suffering from chest pain which was not due to the heart or dyspepsia which was not associated with an ulcer (Katz, P.O. et al. Ann. Intern. Med. (1987) 106, 593-7). Motor abnormalities can occur in normal controls without symptoms, but can also disappear, whereby a temporal correlation can be shown with the symptoms of the patient (Fefer, L. et al. Gastroenterology (1992) 102: A447 (Abstract)).
The treatment of the motor abnormalities with all sorts of therapeutically active agents, for example with agents which promote the motions of the gastrointestinal tract, with anticholinergics or calcium channel and cholecystokinin antagonists, are in most cases effective in the correction of the motor abnormalities, but they do not always improve the symptoms of the patients.